A Vision of Spring

Today, the last day of February, winter and spring coexist in chilly bright paradox, with fitful sun, shivering daffodils, a cold north wind, and a soft blue sky sporadically clouded with snow flurries. Winter, which we worried would never come, is holding sway, but not enough to freeze the signs and harbingers of Spring from our yards and hearts.

All winter, Marcus has been conjuring Spring, breathing a blush into the gray days in his work on the Biltmore Estate's spring wine label, Biltmore in Bloom.

Following his lovely and well-loved Christmas wine label, Biltmore Winter, the estate once again selected Marcus to create the art that will adorn their special release 2013 Spring wine, a Rose' of Pinot Grigio.

Marcus' interpretation of spring arriving at the Biltmore Estate is, once again, a fantasy of beauty and majesty. Tulips, of a vibrant pink hue gardeners dream of, dominate the foreground en masse. The delicate flowers are juxtaposed against the background scene of the majestic mansion seemingly hovering in the spring forest, appearing more ethereal than the flowers, a reversal that can only happen in the magic of springtime. Above the entirety, the misty Blue Ridge Mountains and the new spring sky widen the horizon, opening portal of possibility for all who traipse the springtime landscape, searching for such wonder as the painting portrays.

About his work, Marcus writes, The tulips are definitely the stars of the design. I wanted the flowers to be elevated in the landscape, reigning above the house, creating good depth and inviting the eye to journey within the painting towards the magic of the estate, and beyond to the mountains and spring sky. Flower power prevails!

And flower power (and a good glass of wine) is just what the end of February needs! Snowy River Limited is pleased to announce that the prints of Biltmore in Bloom will be available for purchase. If you are local to Western North Carolina, you can find the prints and the book Flight of the Mind at Weaverville's Art Accents frame shop and gallery. A variety of framing options are also available. View these online at Marcus' official site. Online purchase is also available through the website.

Stay tuned for the official press release of Marcus' spring wine label for the Biltmore Estate. In the meantime, check out our February 2012 posts when we were at the height of the Christmas wine label voting contest, and enjoyed the luxury of a leap year.

Truth in a Mask: Conclusion

Production of Flight of the Mind continues to soar and we will treat our readers to another excerpt later this week. In the meantime, exciting news has come from the Denver Hospice Mask Project. 

Every two years, the Denver Hospice solicits masks designed by celebrities, authors, artists, musicians and local personalities. Read about this year's fascinating array of masks here.  In the spring, the masks are auctioned off online and in Denver. All the money goes to the hospice to make compassionate care-taking accessible to families whose loved ones are nearing death. 

Marcus' mask, an interpretive rendition of the painting, How Time Flies, brought in a good amount to go towards helping make end-of-life care and comfort a reality for many people. So many of the masks were astonishing, and the whole endeavor shows a bright and hopeful face, a testament to what can happen when creative people come together for a cause. Visit the Mask Project site to see a showcase of these faces, all true and beautiful.

Read about Marcus' mask in our entry, The Mask Revealed. For curious minds, who want to see the process of creation, read our post, Beauty and Truth in a Mask.   

Stay tuned and subscribe to this blog for more (and more frequent as the completion nears) updates and excerpts of the book, Flight of the Mind: An Artist's Journey through Paralysis. 

The mask revealed

The finished mask.

This weekend has been earmarked since the beginning of the year as one for sacred celebration. The first full moon after the spring equinox, known as the paschal moon, marks the Jewish observance of Passover. And the Christian holiday of Easter is always on the Sunday following the paschal moon.

And what a moon! On Friday night, we saw the moon rise above the French Broad river and the pale golden light on the water looked like a pathway into worlds beyond the imagination. All the dogwood blossoms unfurled this week, to receive the moon's clean light and glow from within. And all weekend long when the apple trees shed their blossoms into the wind and sunlight, one could almost imagine flecks of moon dust sifting down to glitter every leaf and blade of grass.

As the moon revealed her full face, Marcus completed the mask for the Denver Mask project. Following the raven from How Time Flies, the mask reveals a world beyond imagination, a world the paschal moon coaxes us into believing. Along the planes of a human face, the raven disappears beyond the ridge of the left eye, into a scene of grand calm and flowing beauty. The watch, embodied in the right eye, trails along. And the eye that inhabits the watch is astonished. The face of the mask is about to fold in on itself and reveal everything in one fell swoop.

Just as the paschal moon wakes us up to the sacred celebrations of spring, the full face of Marcus's mask can wake us up to a world beyond imagination that glows as if lit from within.

We might all see something different when we look up at the full moon. I see a woman's face, and she appears to be singing. Some people see a rabbit; some see the man in the moon, some see blue cheese, some see different things in different seasons. The same is true of Marcus's mask. What do you see when you look the mask in the eye? You are welcome to share your thoughts below.

Time outside of time

A sketch from How Time Flies.

We return to one of our favorite themes on leap-day 2012: time. My leap-day dream involves breaking out of the linear conception of time where seconds make up minutes and minutes make up hours and one day piles on the next in the rubble of weeks, months years. When I was younger I imagined that February 29th was a magic day, because it was so rare. In this one day, surely, the possibility of all days, past and future, exist. I could crawl through a hollow tree and end up in an alternate universe where the people didn't keep time, never ran out of time, and lived happily without ever having to worry about being late.

Another leap-day dream would be that words have colors, form, texture and the immediate deep impact that painted images do. Imagination and words falter when it comes to re-conceiving time.  Perhaps the problem is the human heartbeat, temporal bodies living eternal experiences.

Maybe this February 29th, I'll meet a raven who has stolen a pocket watch, and I can barter something precious to hitch a ride and see time from a different angle.

Nevertheless, we are running out of time to vote for Marcus's label, so take a couple heartbeats to do this and make a toast to a day that happens every once in a while.

Here is Marcus's lovely leap-day dream:
I dream of a beach worthy wheelchair and endless healthy years to enjoy.
I dream of world peas.
I am living a dream!

What's yours? Feel free to add it below and extend this day's feeling of timelessness as long as possible.

Poetic and Prophetic

The new year arrives, healthy and pink with promise.

Happy New Year! This year we celebrate good work and great love. May the year 2012 sharpen our mind's eye and our sense of kairos. We look forward to many good and magical moments, and a continued Flight of the Mind.

Check out this beautifully written article about Marcus' work in Asheville's Bold Life magazine, "The Mind's Eye," by Ursula Gullow.

Check back here, or subscribe, for new-year updates on the progress of the book, Flight of the Mind, and painterly musings on subjects dear to our heart.

Yo!: How To Have a Cosmic Christmas

Several weeks before the Christmas of 1986, less than nine months after the accident, Anne and Marcus' sister Amanda presented Marcus with a set of Crayola watercolors and unknowingly awakened a talent in Marcus that would turn out to be a gift to so many others.

Marcus took up the paintbrush, in the spirit of fun, and his first work was a Christmas card (pictured). The message it carried was more than just a holiday wish. His triumphant “Yo!” signaled to everyone his definitive take on the situation.  Rather than gloom or depression, the drawing attests to Marcus’ simple joy in being alive and his pleasure in this new-found form of expression. Twenty-five years since the accident that paralyzed him, Marcus still paints in the spirit of love and fun, touching lives with tenderness and wonder.

There's an ancient Hindu story about a man who spent his lifetime begging by the city gates, always at the brink of starvation, clothed in rags. After awhile, he died, and after another several years the city decided to enlarge the gateway. During the excavation, the municipal workers turned up the earth on which the beggar had stood, sat and slept for those many years. Underneath the very spot, they discovered a priceless treasure, enough to feed and clothe any number of men for any number of lifetimes. All along, the story goes, within touching distance of the hapless beggar's feet great riches lay buried, worth many times more than what he needed to survive and live abundantly. What a cosmic event that might have been! If only the beggar had ever paused to consider what lay underneath the layers both of himself and the world.

We need more messages like the message of Marcus' first Christmas card: signs, poems,  paintings, gestures that point the way to the treasure hidden shallowly beneath the surface of our everyday struggle, hungers and chills. It is in the same spirit of love and wonder that we wish all our friends and family,
Merry Cosmic Christmas! 

PS: Happy solstice all! There's nothing like the shortest day and longest night to heighten your sense of time. ;')

Thanksgiving: Time Is a Gift

Watch time soar.

Marcus began work on the painting How Time Flies after the first couple of sessions of interviews with Leslee for his 25-year retrospective coffee-table-book.This image was taken during the creation of the painting. The raven is gaining his third dimension and appears to be tearing out of the canvas, over and beyond Marcus' pallet and implements. The pocket watch trails in flight, haplessly careening.


How Time Flies is a direct expression of Marcus' relationship with time – the revelry and ravages, the love and loss, the joy and the heartbreak, as he is (all of us really are) simultaneously blessed and held hostage by time.  In his honesty with himself, Marcus transcends his particular experience of time and touches on something universal. We see through Marcus’ own eyes something we can all recognize in our own relationship with the time of our lives.

Time around the table with friends.

We often catch ourselves lamenting the speed of time. Days, minutes, hours go by so fast, especially when we are with people we enjoy, doing work we love, creating something we believe in. We can't help but wish for more time. It's probably high time we recognized the commodity time is - we can spend it, waste it, lose it on crazy nights perhaps worth forgetting, we want to steal it, and oh if we could just stretch it out to last a little longer. . .

But time fools and foils us completely. We trick ourselves into thinking time is exhaustible when the truth about time is that we make it. Just like we make art, memories, love. "I cherish every moment," says Marcus, when he reflects on the time of his life, nailing the true spirit of Thanksgiving in his depiction of this holy theft."The raven seems like it could surpass time, and I’m hitching a ride – the fountain of life."

"An infinite perspective is the fountain of youth," Marcus says and this is what he shows us in How Time Flies. And this is what defines human thanksgiving - simultaneously blessed and held hostage.

So, here from this corner of the world to yours, wherever you may be: let us give thanks for the folks that make life and time meaningful, for good work, the people who inspire us, the moments we spend with one another . . thanks for art, and cadmium yellow, alzarin crimson, Payne's gray and cobalt blue, trickster ravens, lovers, friends, deep sky over the mystery ahead, and for time and life itself which gives us all these possibilities in which to dwell.

What are you thankful for in this moment? Add to the infinite list (into cyberspace, for which we are also thankful) below.

Kairos, the spirit of good timing, is with us

Bob films Marcus cruising through the lovely day at Lake James.

The ancient Greeks believed in two different aspects of time. Chronos embodied the passage of clock time, responsible for days, hours, minutes, the way we age. Kairos embodied the split-second opportunity, the spirit of good timing and the eternal instant. This spirit of "the right time," Kairos, is depicted balanced atop wheels with wings on his ankles, holding a sharp edge representing the "split" second in which opportunity arrives and must be seized.

As we work on capturing the last 25 years of Marcus' time creating art, we find ourselves blessed with many good moments in which we almost seem to transcend clock-time to dwell in possibility and opportunity -  moments that last a lifetime.  The spirit of Kairos hovers around us as the right people gather at the right place in the perfect time to create the book.

Lydia Inglett, Marcus, Leslee and Anne (behind the camera) discuss timing.

In the past couple weeks - how time flies! - we've begun to work with Lydia Inglett, who will design the book. That process will soon be underway and her vision is inspiring us all.

We've also spent some time in front of the camera ourselves, thanks to Bob Peck of revpictures, a talented videographer who is working with us to film the DVD portion of the project. Saturday afternoon found us all at Lake James. Vibrant leaves served as a fitting backdrop for a fireside chat which was profound and inspiring.

We cannot know what the next days, weeks and month will hold, but with the good work before us, the right people beside us, and the blessing of good timing, we know we are in for a harvest season of grand possibilities. 

Kairos, the spirit of good timing.

13 Ways of Looking

Raven detail from "The Watch"

Inspired by Wallace Steven's "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird" which you can read online by clicking the link.


Thirteen Ways to See a Raven

1. The opportunist never sleeps.

2. Three blackbirds is a good omen representing   
    brightness and goodness. 
    Perhaps Wallace was in good spirits that day.

3. Ignoring change, the bird was blending, adapting, 
    playing.
   Or, simply delivering a message of doom in the face of nature's dramatic change. (magical change)

4. Blackbirds (corvids) are monogamous representing relationship longevity .

5. The blackbird sings in riddle, allusive and suggestive.
    Perhaps the tune is like the bartender's last call!

6. The ghost appears outside the window, waving warning or just playing.
    Perhaps the weight of winter is seeping in.

7. The blackbird should not be shunned because of its blackness for its value is gold.

8. The spiritual blackbird, the watchful eye.

9. Significant moment , birthday?
    Life map mile marker. Personal growth , one step closer to death.

10. Emotions soar when the blackbirds fly.
      Feelings can be dark as death,
      or bright as the sun,
      even on a cloudy day.

11. Perhaps, death follows closely.

12. When the blackbird stirs, nature is on the move.
      The pace of the planet is a fine rhythm.

13. Always present, the blackbird never sleeps!


And you, faithful reader? Tell us how the blackbird looks from your perspective. Help us get 13 responses below. 

Making Time for Walden - Cabin in the Woods

Marcus and I are reading Thoreau's Walden or Life in the Woods in the midst of trying times.

I bought my copy of Walden and Other Writings from The Strand bookstore in New York City in September of 2000, when I was terribly homesick for the mountains of North Carolina. When I picked it up yesterday, for the first time in years (not counting unpacking and packing it) I found within the pages, in the chapter called "Solitude" pictures of my long-gone friend Ishmael and the garden we grew together on the Bruce Farm in Mars Hill, NC. Calvin Chandler, who had cows and a tractor, plowed and raked over the soil for me - half an acre worth - and I planned to grow enough vegetables to keep students and families of Mars Hill in fresh vegetables all season. The task would prove much easier to dream than to realize - not so much the growing (I had the Ishmael, with about 7o years of gardening experience, to help me) but what to do with all the vegetables and how to get my classmates to come shovel manure in the name of community.

So mostly, it was just me and Ish at the garden. The photos are a result of my excitement at the vast, plowed expanses of what would be my garden. It was the fall of 1993, and I was starting a garden of greens and crimson clover. Ish and I were talking about how to lay everything out, and I caught a great crooked picture on a little disposable camera of Ish walking off a row, followed by two scrappy beagles, whose names I can't remember but know that I have recorded in a journal somewhere in the pink liquorstore box in my closet here in South Asheville, in the late summer of 2011.

Ishmael died in the late nineties, when I was living in New York. The place where our garden was is, last I checked, an embankment that serves as an entrance to a gated community, now starting to show the age, despair and neglect of the recent few years.

So what does all this have to do with work on Marcus' 25- year retrospective? Well, this remains to be seen, but I suspect it's because a retrospective is, necessarily, a lot about time, timing, looking back and wondering. It involves asking, sometimes too, what to make of a diminshed thing - whether we're talking about the natural world we once knew, or the people we used to be. That's the hard part. But. A retrospective well done can have a happy ending, and help us re-member ourselves as surely as we see the same person in the mirror when we pause to look ourself in the eye, every time.

Plus, in the middle of August, really, especially, who doesn't dream of retreating to a remote cabin in the woods, to study the of late summer drone of crickets and cicada, and to stare at the deepening sky, trying to catch and name that particular shade of blue. Closest thing to hitching a ride on the watch in the detail of Marcus' "The Watch" and flying into that deep color blue.

In hectic times like these, it's good to have some sort of retreat, a cabin in the woods to re-member. Maybe that's reading a book you once loved, or losing yourself in an art, the practice of making something. And then, added to that, an invitation to a good friend's "cabin" in the woods wouldn't hurt.

Marcus writes:

Walden

My cabin in the woods:
No roof.
No walls.
Canvas provides shelter from the cold,
Paint fuels the warmth,
brush along,
Invitation only!

-----------------------August 2011

Come visit us here anytime. Tell us how you retro-spect and re-member. And share where you found your "cabin in the woods" where you make the time, in these times, to practice your art, whatever it is you practice.

Dwell in Possibility: Religion, Science and the Art of Metaphor

Detail from the painting titled "The Watch"

In The Life of the Skies, Jonathan Rosen talks a lot about the fracturing of the world (or the western mind) that happened after Darwin. It's a fracture Rosen himself is still trying to heal, through birdwatching as an mediating activity - one that makes people look up and see. For Rosen, as for many of us who love birds, what we see when we look up is the glory of a bird, but also all that the bird represents - literally, spiritually. Metaphorically.


He talks a lot about naturalists of that time - Darwin, Alfred Lord Wallace. And about how they also sought the divine in their work, whether this was made explicit, or not. Wallace, for example, spent years on the Malay Archipelago before he finally found the bird that sent him on this quest - the bird of paradise - a bird in which the natural and the spiritual seem to meet by virtue of a name!

Rosen uses poetry to really bring out the spiritual aspect of birding. He connects Alfred Lord Wallace's quest and love with Wallace Steven's mystical bird, the one in "Of Mere Being" that sings "in the palm at the end of the mind." Rosen makes a good distinction we really appreciate between the materialist versus naturalist.

Marcus responds to this idea in a way that reminds us of poetry, reflecting on his life, confined, yet metaphorically free through the natural world he creates in art. The following words to the conclusion of the post are his thoughts, shared with you. The featured image is a detail from his current work, the painting, titled "The Watch," which you can see in progress in the slideshow to the right:

My confined life is metaphorical happiness.
I should be miserable because?

But, I do not accept misery as a solution.

Self value is part of measuring happiness.
I have purpose, the result is bliss.

Emily Dickinson pops up the the book Life of the Skies too. Her poem, "I dwell in Possibility" evoked this response:

Why not live a life without restriction.
An infinite perspective is the fountain of youth.
Which feeds our hunger to search in a spiritual and or scientific way.

I love the intertwined idea of science and religion. Because I breathe the metaphorical, my acceptance of both is satisfying. I am not grasping for Big answers! Content with the obvious, focusing on MY metaphorical foot print and embracing what is real.
This is my consumption!
Reality is the foundation, for I live in an abstract frame.
Escape through paint, brush and love? YOU BET! If your mind becomes bored with your heart, you are defeated.
Rock on!